The present invention relates to a liquid garlic extract which is free from the characteristic odor of raw garlic juice.
Garlic has long been utilized in everyday life as food stuff, seasoning and tonic nutrition and has recently found utility in cosmetics. It is also true, however, that most people dislike garlic because the characteristic odor is very strong. The characteristic odor is reportedly ascribed to allicin and related low-molecular breakdown products which are produced by alliinase from alliin, an active component of garlic.
Although many methods for deodorization of garlic have been proposed heretofore, they use heating, boiling, roasting, steaming, dehydrating or chemical treatment, resulting in severe loss of the nutritional value of raw garlic.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a liquid garlic extract which has no unpleasant odor and acrid taste which are characteristics of the raw garlic juice while completely maintaining the high nutritional value of the raw garlic.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method for producing the deodorized liquid garlic extract which can produce such extract in an inexpensive manner without necessitating any larger sized or complicated production system.